Few people live to see public spaces named for them. Edward Clifford has had that opportunity twice. And for the same space.
On a bright Sunday afternoon Clifford joined a crowd of several hundred kids, teachers, neighbors, and officials to dedicate the new Bishop Woods School on Quinnipiac Avenue.
It wasn’t quite the school that was being named for him.
The $38 million pre‑K to 8 building came in on time and on budget, the 31st project in the $1.4 billion school construction program, according to officials. In their speechmaking officials also praised the school’s architects and other creators for the splendid way it tucks up against the Bishop Woods bird sanctuary and natural setting.
At that point the dedications were only half over.
Afterward musical promenades and huzzahs from the kids, the mayor and other dignitaries escorted 88-year old Ed Clifford just to the right out the front doors of the new school for a second dedication.
There the spanking new Edward F. Clifford Playground, with its slides, chutes, and climbing apparatuses all painted in fall yellows and greens, awaited behind a closed gate.
After some high stakes horsing around with the ceremonial golden scissors, Clifford cut the ribbon.
It was deja vu all over again for Clifford. In 2000 he attended the original dedication of the playground, then behind the old Bishop Woods School. When two years ago the old school and playground were torn down to make way for the new, principal Barbara Chock saved the old plaque.
Clifford pulled back a black velvet cloth to unveil the re-affixed old plaque on a shining marble pedestal before the new playground, with evident emotion.
Clifford said it means a lot to him to have “my work on behalf of kids acknowledged.”
He added that it was especially meaningful because his daughter Patti had recently retired after teaching at the school for 34 years.
As an alderman for three terms in the early 1990s, Clifford was instrumental in advancing plans for the playground, as well as the new school.
The mayor said the playground acknowledges Clifford’s tireless efforts on behalf of the children and the community. Then he quipped, “No one will ever touch it again.”
In addition to his service as alderman, Clifford served two stints as the city’s tax assessor, between 1974 and 1979 and again from 1980 to 1983.
It’s a job for an orderly, organized man. Evidence of that was the green program for the first dedication, still neatly folded and in good shape, that Clifford withdrew from the vest pocket of his coat. He wanted it there as he experienced the second.
Clifford looked over his shoulder, where kids had wasted no time in spotting a good thing. “This becomes alive when children are in it,” he said.